OPOSED PLATFORM 

FOR THE 

AMERICAN PARTY 




REVISED EDITION 
1907 







■Wll";# 



RODERICK H. SMITH 

Author of "The Science of Business;" "A New Business 
in Wall Street;" "The Silver Question Settled;" 
"National Bimetallism;" "Proposed Plat- 
form for the American Party," Etc. 



PROPOSED PLATFORM 

FOR THE 

AMERICAN PARTY 



REVISED EDITION 



1907 



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Copyright, 1907, 

.BY t 
RODERICK ^Hf SMITH 



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Courteous Reader : 

The following proposed platform is respectfully presented for 
your distinguished consideration and for the consideration of all 
Americans who want Americanism. 



PROPOSED PLATFORM 

FOR 

THE AMERICAN PARTY 

The American party by its representatives in National 
Convention assembled, hereinafter sets forth its plans, 
purposes and principles and contracts, if given power 
by the people, to carry out the following platform: 

AMERICANISM 

We assert that the principles of liberty set forth in 
the Declaration of Independence are the basis and 
foundation of the American system of government, 
State and National, and we propose anew to enact and 
fix them practically as follows, viz: 

Be it resolved jointly by the House of Representatives 
and the Senate of the United States of America, in Con- 
gress assembled: 

Section i. That the following is declared to be a fair 
statement of the principles of liberty upon which prin- 
ciples rest American law, the Federal Constitution and 
the constitutions of the several States. 

First. That all men, naturally, are free, equal and 
independent, as far as regards their rights, and so re- 
main. 

Second. That these natural rights of individuals are 
inherent and unalienable. 

Third. That among these rights are the rights of 
life, liberty, property, reputation, and the pursuit of 
happiness. 



Fourth. That the Republic of the United States of 
America was instituted to secure and protect the rights 
of man. 

Fifth. That governments derive their just powers 
from the consent of the governed. 

Sixth. That when any government becomes destruc- 
tive of the Rights of Man, it is the right and duty of a 
free and independent people to reform, alter, amend, or 
abolish it. 

Seventh. That the enumeration of certain rights in 
clause three of this statement shall not be construed 
to deny or disparage certain other rights possessed by 
each individual. 

Sec. 2. And be it further resolved, as aforesaid: 

That the government and people of the United States, 
of necessity, are in deep sympathy with all peoples 
throughout the world who are struggling for liberty 
and who have established government, or who propose 
to establish government, based on the principles of 
liberty. 

Sec. 3. And be it further resolved, as aforesaid: 

That the Congress recommends to the Legislatures of 
the several States that they, respectively, shall enact 
and apply the foregoing resolution. 

We hold that the principles of liberty are self-evident 
truths for the reason, that, when negatively stated, they 
must be false. 

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

Holding in view the American principles above set 
forth, we declare that the Philippine Islands should be 
held in trust by the United States pending the estab- 
lishment of an independent Republican government by 
the people thereof, which the United States shall under- 
take to promote. We pledge legislation that shall 
effectively secure this end. 

PORTO RICO 

We declare that the people of Porto Rico are entitled 
to a territorial form of government, and we promise 
effective legislation to secure this end. We deny the 



right or the power of Congress to establish colonies 
under the American flag. 

We hold that the Constitution of the United States, 
of right, extends over all the lands of the United States. 

ALASKA 

We declare that the people of Alaska are entitled to 
a territorial form of government and we pledge effective 
legislation to secure this end. 

NEW STATES 

We declare that no territory should be admitted to 
the privileges of statehood except upon a vote by the 
Congress of the United States declaring that the con- 
stitution of the proposed State is republican in form. 

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE 

We present for consideration the proposition that the 
elective franchise should be limited to those only who 
can read, write and speak the American language, and 
who can otherwise show some evidences of interest in 
the preservation of American principles. We favor a 
practical system of direct nominations to the end that 
all qualified voters shall have an equal opportunity to 
serve their fellow citizens. 

IMMIGRATION 

We favor the restriction of immigration to those only 
who can be developed into American citizens. 

IMPERIALISM AND SOCIALISM 

We oppose Imperialism. We oppose Socialism. We 
stand for Americanism, believing that all public ques- 
tions can and should be solved within the limits of the 
principles of liberty. 

MONEY 

We declare for the establishment of a national bi- 
metallic monetary system without waiting for the aid 
or consent of any other nation. 

We adhere to the opinion of Daniel Webster — that 
gold and silver, at rates regulated by Congress, form the 



constitutional and, therefore, the legal standard of val- 
ues in this country and that neither Congress nor any 
State has authority to establish any other standard or to 
displace this. We define bimetallism as follows: Bi- 
metallism requires: 

First. That 23.22 grains of pure gold shall be the 
money unit. 

Second. That the Secretary of the Treasury shall 
receive, on equal terms, all the gold and all the silver 
offered to him for conversion into money at the Treas- 
ury of the United States. 

Third. That every dollar produced therefrom, 
whether of gold, silver, or representative paper, as a 
matter of fact, always shall be the equivalent of the 
unit at home and abroad; that the silver money pro- 
duced, like the gold money, when presented at the 
respective sub-treasuries there to be established, always 
shall be capable of being converted, on demand, into the 
moneys of leading foreign nations without loss, that is, 
at the par of exchange. 

Fourth. That the bonds of the United States shall be 
made payable in standard money of the United States 
and this expression, so used or when used in any con- 
tract or other document, shall be interpreted to mean 
either gold unit dollars of the weight and fineness as 
explicitly set forth in section one of the bill hereafter 
referred to, or an amount of fine silver bullion equiva- 
lent in value thereto at the price (the then world's price) 
as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury under 
the provisions of section seven of said bill, at the option 
of the payer. 

We propose to get bimetallism through the enact- 
ment of bills Nos. 2787 and 2788, Fifty-fourth Congress, 
respectively entitled, " A bill to establish a gold cur- 
rency and a silver currency on a basis of interchangeable 
value throughout the world," and, " A bill to fix the 
denominations of gold and silver coins to be issued by 
the United States and to establish the free coinage 
thereof," which, when put in operation, will produce a 
monetary system in exact correspondence with the 
above definition. 



We propose that the legal tender notes, the silver 
dollars, and subsidiary coins shall be reorganized and 
harmonized with the above monetary system. 

We are not opposed to bank-note circulation but regard 
its proper place in the national monetary system rather 
as an auxiliary to, than a substitute for, the national 
bimetallic full-covered currency. 

We declare that bank reserves should be strengthened. 

TRUSTS 

We readily recognize in the so-called trusts of the 
present day a passing phase of industrial evolution, the 
end of which is perfected industrial co-operation. We 
pledge ourselves to support all measures, formulated 
within the limits of the principles of liberty, the mani- 
fest effect of which will be to hasten this end. 

TARIFF 

We favor a reasonable tariff and the extension of 
James G. Blaine's invention, the reciprocity treaty. 

NEWFOUNDLAND 

We favor a reciprocity treaty with Newfoundland of 
the most liberal nature. 

PANAMA CANAL 

We cannot applaud a treaty whereby the United 
States paid $50,000,000 and got neither a morally clear 
title to the land nor complete control of the Panama 
zone. We propose by appropriate legislation to remedy 
this situation, so that the United States shall obtain 
a clear title to the whole Isthmus of Panama and shall 
organize the same as a territory of the United States. 

ARMY 

We favor a regular army, including all branches, of 
80,000 men, being one soldier to every 1,000 of popula- 
tion, which army shall be put and kept at the highest 
standard of efficiency; the militia of the several States to 
be co-ordinated with this nucleus, so that, upon a declar- 
ation of war by the Congress, one order from the com- 
mander-in-chief, instantly and without confusion, will 



produce the Grand Army of the Republic thoroughly 
drilled, equipped, clothed, and officered. 

NAVY 

We desire that the American Navy shall be the most 
powerful and efficient in the world, but we consider that 
new inventions have displaced or are about to displace 
the battleship, cruiser, torpedo boat, and monitor, and 
therefore hesitate to make further appropriations for 
these types of fighting craft. 

MONROE DOCTRINE 

We assert our entire confidence in the Monroe Doc- 
trine and propose to state and fix it by Congressional 
enactment practically as follows: 

Be it resolved jointly by the House of Representatives 
and the Senate of the United States of America in Con- 
gress assembled, as follows: 

First. That the American continents by the free and 
independent position which they have assumed and do 
maintain are henceforth not to be considered as subject 
for future colonization by any European or other power; 
and the United States will consider any attempt on their 
part to extend the monarchial system of government to 
any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to its peace 
and safety. 

Second. That hereafter no territory on the American 
continents shall be regarded as subject of transfer to 
any European or other foreign power. (General 
Grant's addition to Monroe Doctrine, Message, May 31, 
1870.) 

Third. That with the existing colonies or depend- 
encies of an European power the United States has not 
interfered, save on just principles, and henceforth will 
not interfere except on the same principles. 

Fourth. That with the internal affairs of any foreign 
State, except when the rights of its own citizens are 
involved, the United States has no concern, desiring 
peace, friendship, profitable trade with all nations, en- 
tangling alliances with none. 



Fifth. That any interposition by an European or 
other power for the purpose of oppressing, or in any 
other manner controlling either the destinies of those 
republican governments of the Western Hemisphere 
which have declared their independence and maintained 
it, and whose independence the United States, on great 
consideration and on just principles, has acknowledged; 
or the destinies of such other republican governments 
in any part of the world which the United States has 
been, or may become, instrumental in establishing, 
cannot be viewed in any other light but as the mani- 
festation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United 
States. 

APPLICATION OF MONROE DOCTRINE 

Whenever serious discords arise between any republic 
covered by the Monroe Doctrine and any European or 
other foreign power, we favor the adoption of the fol- 
lowing plan, viz: Get a request from that republic; 
hold it in trust; fix it up; let it go. 

PEACE COURT 

In order to consolidate the organic interests of peace 
throughout the world we propose to establish a World's 
Peace Court, a purely judicial tribunal, as Benjamin 
Harrison suggested, by enacting a bill or treaty in the 
American Congress; the Powers to be invited to name 
judges to said court, who shall be bound by oath to 
apply the principles of justice and right, upon which 
principles repose the security of nations and the welfare 
of peoples, to all cases coming before the Peace Court. 
The accepting Powers to agree to submit to the Peace 
Court all questions not capable of solution through the 
ordinary diplomatic channels, retaining the right of ap- 
peal from the judgment of the Court to their respective 
centers of justice. 

This proposed platform, while not complete, covers 
the main points of orthodox Americanism. To this 
framework other planks can be added. This is a plat- 
form for action and those elected upon it are under con- 
tract to carry it out. 



A SHORT HISTORY 

AMERICANISM 

In January, 1900, the Honorable Senator George F. 
Hoar was requested by the author to introduce and 
to endeavor to pass in the Senate the resolution before 
set forth on Americanism (published in " Buffalo Ex- 
press " Dec. 28, 1899). He said: "You have about as 
much chance of passing this resolution in Congress as 
if you should ask the Czar of Russia to proclaim it by 
an Imperial ukase." 

The reason why it would be difficult now to enact 
and apply this resolution in the Congress of the United 
States and in the Legislatures of the several States is 
because of the consequences it carries in its wake. Such 
action would force the complete reconstruction of the 
so-called laws affecting Porto Rico and the Philippine 
Islands, for laws they are not which are contrary to 
American principles, encourage the republican move- 
ment in Russia and elsewhere throughout the world, 
give the Boers a long-delayed resolution, banish the 
policy of Imperialism from and stop the growth of 
Socialism in the United States, and in other directions 
generally clean the legislative houses of the nation and 
the several States. The American Republic has no right 
or power to run colonies and every American knows it, 
yet we have them. Keep the colonial idea and give up 
the principles of liberty, or keep the principles of liberty 
and give up the colonial idea; this is the situation. Keep 
Americanism and give up Socialism, or keep Socialism 
and give up Americanism, is the situation in another 
quarter. 

Magna Charta, according to Sheldon Ames, has been 
solemnly confirmed upwards of thirty times by the 
English people. It is evident that no possible harm, but 
on the contrary great good, would result should the 
American people now reaffirm and apply their funda- 
mental principles of government. 

The principles of liberty, as has been said, are the 
truth, for the reason, that, when negatively stated, they 

10 



must be false. So treated they may be expressed as 
follows: 

THE PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY NEGATIVELY STATED 

First. That, by the law of nature, all men are slaves, 
unequal and dependent as far as regards their rights, and 
so remain. 

Second. That individuals have no inherent and un- 
alienable rights. 

Third. That no man has the right of life, liberty, 
property, reputation, or the pursuit of happiness. 

Fourth. That the Republic of the United States was 
not instituted to secure and protect the rights of man. 

Fifth. That governments do not derive their just 
powers from the consent of the governed. 

Sixth. That when any government upholds the in- 
dividual rights of life, liberty, property, reputation, or 
the pursuit of happiness, it should be reformed, altered, 
amended, or abolished. 

Seventh. That no man has any rights whatsoever. 

It is evident to every man, outside of the doors of 
the idiot asylum, that, when negatively stated, the prin- 
ciples of liberty cannot be true, therefore, when affirma- 
tively stated, they must be and are the truth. 

Put short the principles of liberty read: You have 
the right of life and so have I; you have the right of 
liberty and so have I; you have the right of property and 
so have I; you have the right of reputation and so have 
I; you have the right to the pursuit of happiness and so 
have I — statements that are difficult to be denied, and 
few desire to deny them. 

Many people have gone queasy and have been preju- 
diced by the statement in the Declaration " that all men 
are created equal/' Literally interpreted this statement 
cannot be true, but no student of history or friend of 
Americanism ever has so interpreted it. The equality 
to which Jefferson here refers is the equality of rights, 
and an examination of his other writings proves this. "The 
true foundation of republican government is in the 
equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, 
and in their management." (Ford, Ed. X. 39.) "The 

11 



immovable basis of equal rights and reason." (Ford, 
Ed. VII. 118.) 

Abraham Lincoln said: 

" I think that the authors of that notable instrument 
intended to include all men, but they did not intend 
to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not 
mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral 
developments, or social capacity. They defined with 
tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider 
all men created equal — equal with ' certain inalienable 
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness/ This they said, and this they meant. 
They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that 
all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet 
that they were about to confer it immediately upon 
them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. 
They meant simply to declare the right, so that en- 
forcement of it might follow as fast as circum- 
stances should permit. They meant to set up a stand- 
ard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to 
all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly 
labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, 
constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spread- 
ing and deepening its influence and augmenting the 
happiness and value of life to all people of all colors, 
everywhere.'' (Works I, p. 232.) 

The Declaration mentions only three of the natural 
rights of man, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
but, as was very well understood in those days, there 
are other natural rights. Samuel Adams on Nov. 20, 
1772, got adopted by the assembled citizens of Boston 
a declaration of rights in which the colonists demanded 
the rights of liberty and property. Adams asserts that 
" the security of right and property is the great end of 
government." John Hancock declared " that security to 
the persons and properties of the governed is obviously 
the design and end of government." The Second Con- 
tinental Congress, Oct. 14, 1774, resolved: " That they 
are entitled to life, liberty, and property, and they have 
never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to 
dispose of either without their consent." The Virginia 

12 



Resolutions, June 12, 1776, affirm the right of property. 
The right of reputation is mentioned in the several bills 
of rights attached to the early State constitutions. 

Another old-fashioned American right, to which now- 
a-days few pay attention, is the right of privacy. This 
right is guaranteed in the fourth amendment to the 
National Constitution: " That the right, of the people 
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, 
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not 
be violated." To the list of rights set forth in the 
Declaration of 1776 we now consistently may add the 
rights of property and reputation and, if thought neces- 
sary, the right of privacy in the proposed restatement 
of the principles of liberty as set forth on pages 3 and 4 
of this pamphlet. p , 

American principles affirming the natural right of in- 
dividuals to life, liberty, property, reputation, and the 
pursuit of happiness have a moral excellence and seem 
to accord with that rule of right reason of which Cicero 
speaks, " which is congenial to the feelings of nature, 
diffused among all men, uniform, eternal, commanding 
us to our duty and prohibiting every violation of it; one 
eternal and immortal law which can neither be repealed 
nor derogated from, addressing itself to all nations and 
to all ages, deriving its authority from the common sov- 
ereign of the universe, seeking no other lawgiver and 
interpreter, and carrying home its sanctions to every 
breast by the inevitable punishment he inflicts upon its 
transgressors." The principles of liberty, unquestion- 
ably, are the ones we want — the principles of justice, 
honor, reason, right, and of eternal truth; the principles 
of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, 
Mason, Lee, the Adamses, Hancock, Marshall, Jay, 
Wilson, Jackson, Monroe, Benton, Webster, Lincoln, 
Grant, Seward, Sumner, Evarts, Blaine, Sherman, Hoar, 
Reed, and of all genuine American statesmen since the 
inception of the government; principles toward the ex- 
pression of which many great men of former ages, 
notably of the English Commonwealth, had struggled 
but without complete success until the Forefathers 
formulated them, stated them in consecutive order and 

13 



made them the basis of the American government in 
the immortal Declaration of Independence, the greatest, 
the grandest, the most noble, the most commanding 
and the most pathetic political document of any age or 
of any language. 

To the objection that a restatement by the American 
Congress of the Principles of Liberty at the present 
time might prove to be distasteful to European nations, 
Daniel Webster, in the Hulsemann letter, seems to 
furnish a sufficient reply. He said in part: "Certainly, 
the United States may be pardoned, even by those who 
profess adherence to the principles of absolute gov- 
ernment, if they entertain an ardent affection for those 
popular forms of political organization which have so 
rapidly advanced their own prosperity and happiness, 
and enabled them, in so short a period, to bring their 
country, and the hemisphere to which it belongs, to the 
notice and respectful regard, not to say the admiration, 
of the civilized world. Nevertheless, the United States 
have abstained, at all times, from acts of interference 
with the political changes of Europe. They cannot, 
however, fail to cherish always a lively interest in the 
fortunes of nations struggling for institutions like their 
own. But this sympathy, so far from being necessarily 
a hostile feeling toward any of the parties to these 
great national struggles, is quite consistent with amic- 
able relations with them all." 

Said Algernon Sidney: " Truth being uniform in itself 
those who desire to propagate it for the good of man- 
kind lay the foundations of their reasoning in such prin- 
ciples as are either evident to common sense or easily 
proved." We know that the principles of liberty are 
the truth, that they are the soul of Americanism, that 
they form the basis and foundation of republican gov- 
ernment, that they have guided all the genuine Ameri- 
can statesmen of past generations; we also know, that, 
for the reasons hereinbefore set forth, it now would be 
difficult to enact and apply them; thus it follows, that, 
during this peculiar situation of political affairs, the 
American flag, the national songs, the various patriotic 
societies, Sons of the Revolution, Daughters of the Revo- 

14 



lution, Grand Army of the Republic, etc., etc., seem to be 
somewhat beclouded in their meaning; in short, that 
there is no longer a genuine republic, only the resem- 
blance of one, and, therefore, the necessity is thus 
shown for a new political party that shall be pledged 
to enact and apply the principles of liberty and so 
brighten the honor and restore the ancient integrity of 
the nation. 

COLONIES 

Imperialism started in the Paris Treaty (Dec. io 9 
1898) was unnecessary for the reason that an alternative 
policy having the result to hold the Philippines in trust 
pending the establishment of an independent republican 
government by the people thereof and to make Porto 
Rico a territory was submitted to the Senate and the 
President as soon as the text of the Paris Treaty was 
known. This proposed amendment to the Paris Treaty 
was published in the " Buffalo Express " on December 
20, 1898, and was endorsed by leading citizens of Buffalo, 
as follows: John G. Milburn, George B. Mathews, A. J. 
Barnes, S. M. Clement, Wilson S. Bissell, Ansley Wil- 
cox, George V. Forman, Sherman S. Rogers, J. N. Larned, 
J. N. Adam, J. K. Bancroft, John B. Olmsted, Carleton 
Sprague, William B. Cutter, H. T. Koerner, V. Mott 
Pierce, Norman E. Mack, ex-Mayor Conrad Diehl, J. H. 
Lascelles, Henry F. Allen. 

This amendment was not favorably acted upon in the 
Senate and a useless and wanton war was started 
against the Filipinos, a people who had never injured 
the American people in the least degree. Thousands 
upon thousands of Filipinos were killed and their little 
properties ruined. Many American also died without 
glory for their cause was not just and several hundred 
millions of dollars were expended to no productive end. 
Political blunders are expensive and have been called 
worse than crimes. 

Another attempt to inaugurate this policy was made 
when the Philippine Civil government bill was before 
the Senate. This amendment, generally endorsed by- 
leading citizens of Buffalo, was published in the Buffalo 
"Courier" June 17, 1902. Senator Hoar, who had 

15 



charge of both amendments, here referred to, in a letter 
to the author then declared, " This would be the best 
possible solution of the Philippine Question." 

" Will Imperialism pay? That i-s the question and the 
only question," cried one of its votaries in the Senate 
of the United States at that time. Edmund Burke has 
photographed this type. " The profane herd of vulgar 
and mechanical politicians who think that nothing ex- 
ists but what is gross and material, and, therefore, far 
from being qualified to be the directors of the great 
movement of Empire are not fit to turn a wheel of 
the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly 
taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the 
opinions of such men as I have mentioned, have no 
substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in 
all." (Conciliation with America.) It is a matter of 
official record that the Declaration of Independence 
was not allowed publicly to be read in the city of 
Manila on July 4, 1901. 

Americans favor expansion and the only way to ex- 
pand is to expand, but we insist that the Declaration of 
Independence and the Constitution of the United States 
shall follow the flag, which is derived from Washing- 
ton's coat of arms and carries a beautiful sentiment that 
should not be stained. Where this plan is not practical, 
as in the Philippine Islands by reason of the relatively 
low development of that people, we propose another 
plan, viz: Hold in trust, start a republic, let them de- 
velop, and, when ripened, we can consider whether or 
not to accept a request from this people to be incor- 
porated as States of the Union. 

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE 

Improve the quality of the electorate and the quality 
of the elected is improved. 

SOCIALISM 

"What is characteristic of Socialism is the joint 
ownership by all the members of the community of the 
instruments and means of production, which carries 
with it the consequence that the division of all the pro- 

16 



duce among the body of owners must be a public act 
performed according to the rules laid down by the com- 
munity." 

(John Stuart Mill.) 

" Public ownership of all the means of production, 
distribution, and exchange/' 

(Plank of Labor representatives, England, 1906.) 

" Public ownership of the means of transportation, 
communication, and exchange." 

(From platform of Socialist Party.) 

Frank A. Vanderlip says: "Socialism is a live politi- 
cal factor in Europe. There is a wave of socialism 
flowing over the whole continent, reaching heights of 
much importance in Germany, Belgium, and France, 
and giving a distinct trend to political life in Austria 
and Italy. It is of great importance to us because of 
the vital effect which the success of the Socialist parties 
would have on European institutions and upon the 
social and industrial conditions there. Of even wider 
importance, however, is this great political and social 
movement, because it foreshadows a tendency which 
we are likely to see gain great force in our own country. 
It seems to me not improbable that we shall, in the next 
few years, hear much of socialism in our own political 
life. I do not think it will be surprising if we eventu- 
ally find political forces here drawn up on a new align- 
ment, with a party standing on a platform which might 
be made up from principles taken from the programmes 
of socialist parties of Europe, and opposed to those 
who will stand for conservatism and the permanance 
of present institutions and conditions. What a Socialist 
party they would make! . . We certainly have just 
the sort of material here in plenty for the building of a 
Socialist party along lines which are showing such 
vital force in the political life of Europe. ... I be- 
lieve there are beginning to be seen in our own 
political life many similar currents. It is natural that 
those currents will eventually come together into a 
united political party. Such a party might be called 
1 Socialist ' or it might find some other name." 

(Business and Education, p. 346 et seq.) 

17 



Mr. Secretary Taft in a speech delivered at Akron, 
Ohio, on Oct. 21, 1905, claimed that Socialism, the pro- 
posed new form of government, was growing in the 
United States. Mr. Bryan lately has developed into a 
Socialist. He says: "Government ownership of rail- 
roads," and easily on the same principle can add " and 
all other corporations and businesses " to this platform. 
Some portions of the Roosevelt policy appear, in effect, 
to be a practical way of reaching by successive steps 
the end that Mr. Bryan seeks, who claims that Mr. 
Roosevelt is carrying out his platform. For instance, 
the Congress has created an Interstate Commerce 
Commission, and the Legislatures of the State of New 
York and of other States have created Public Utilities 
Commissions. All these commissions have been given 
great and unprecedented powers, the Congress and 
Legislatures of the States here considered virtually ab- 
dicating government of the corporations covered to 
these commissions. A situation thus results in which 
public officials largely are to manage and operate cor- 
porations, the stocks and bonds of which are held by 
millions of individual investors. The responsibility for 
the success of these enterprises is to be divided between 
public officials on the one hand and private ownership 
on the other hand, and every business man can see in 
a second that this situation can not last long. 

Chas. A. Prouty, of the Interstate Commission, re- 
cently has declared that the powers of the Commission 
must be extended to the operation of the railroads. 

Two broad plans are presented for solving the rail- 
road question, the adoption of either of which carries 
opposite consequences. 

First. That the government shall own, operate, and 
manage the railroads — the Socialistic plan. 

Second. That individuals shall own, operate, and 
manage the railroads, as at present obtains, subject to 
the railroad law — the American plan. 

The second plan is the one here advocated, but, in 
order to be made effective, it is evident that the railroad 
law should be perfected, codified, and arranged so that 
a citizen who claims that his rights have been violated 

18 



quickly can get justice without excessive cost. It is 
true that there are certain parts of the Interstate Com- 
merce Act and of the corresponding State acts which 
seek to perfect the railroad law, and in so far forth 
they are excellent legislation, but these good parts are 
so mixed up with other and contradictory parts that 
the whole matter at the present time seems to be in a 
tangled state. Some regard these permanent commis- 
sions as being the first practical step towards govern- 
ment ownership of corporations. 

Is there no other solution of the difficulty? 

Can the American form of government, State or 
National, be changed without amending the constitu- 
tions, State or National? 

Socialism, it is evident, can not be accomplished all 
at once. The American mountain must be moved by 
shovelfuls, not bodily. This is now going on. Little 
by little socialistic measures are taken and they accumu- 
late as time goes on until eventually we shall be 
swallowed in the vast wave of National Socialism. 
National ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, the 
steel industry, the oil industry, canals, mines, manufactur- 
ing plants, banks, farms, packing houses, cattle ranges, 
— all these are steps, some partly taken, some proposed, 
that lead towards the socialistic state in which, under 
the management of millions of government officials 
backed by the police and the military, all of us will 
proceed to take care of each of us. Thus ends repub- 
lican government, and we have started on this course. 

Socialism seems to deny the inherent and unalienable 
rights of the individual and seems to affirm the right 
of the State to dispose of the life, liberty, and property 
of individuals, supposedly as it thinks, for the greatest 
good of the greatest number. Merriam, in his book, 
"American Political Theories " (p. 306), speaks of the 
many college professors and teachers of youth who at 
the present time are giving aid and comfort to the 
enemies of Americanism, saying: "The doctrines of 
these men differ in many important respects from those 
earlier entertained. The individualistic ideas of the 
1 natural right ' school of political theory, indorsed in 

19 



the Revolution, are discredited and repudiated.'" One 
of this school, and they are many, is John W. Burgess, 
Ph. D., LL. D., Dean of the University Faculty of Polit- 
ical Science in Columbia College. In his book entitled 
" Political Science and Comparative Constitutional 
Law," page 88, and following, he entirely repudiates 
the principles of liberty. Burgess got the appointment 
as lecturer on American history and institutions at the 
Berlin University in the Roosevelt chair. J. Allen 
Smith, LL. B., Ph. D., of the University of Washington, 
Seattle, in his recent work entitled " The Spirit of 
American Government " attacks the Constitution of the 
United States and those who built it on almost every 
page and quotes Burgess approvingly. Why should 
we be astonished at the growth of Imperialism and 
Socialism when it is sought to turn the youth against 
Americanism? 

Herbert Spencer, author of the philosophy of evo- 
lution, in 1893, declared: 

" My faith in free institutions, originally strong 
(though always joined with the belief that the main- 
tenance and success of them is a question of popular 
character) has, in these later years, been greatly de- 
creased by the conviction that the fit character is not 
possessed by any people, nor is likely to be possessed 
for ages to come. A nation, in which the legislators 
vote as they are bid and in which the workers sur- 
render their rights of selling their labor as they please 
has neither the ideas nor the sentiments needed for the 
maintenance of liberty. Lacking them, we are on the 
way back to the will of the strong hand in the shape of 
the bureaucratic despotism of a socialistic organization, 
and then of the military despotism which must follow 
it, if indeed, some social crash does not bring this last 
upon us more quickly." 

John Milton, Secretary of State to Cromwell, long 
ago in the days of the English Commonwealth declared 
that the people of England of his day were unfit to run 
a republic and subsequent events quickly justified this 
declaration. The English people went back. The 
progress of Republicanism stopped and Imperialism 

•20 



took its place. The principles of liberty slept for over one 
hundred years, but, at length strengthened, improved, 
and developed by the American forefathers they awoke 
in power and glory in the New World. Milton's pre- 
diction came true; will Spencer's prediction be made 
good? Will the Americans go back? Let us hope for 
better results. 

Now the course of events during the last ten years 
greatly strengthens Spencer's prediction. Within that 
time Imperialism has been fastened upon the Ameri- 
can people and the swing toward Socialism is clearly 
defined. Socialism is now taught in some of the col- 
leges and a peculiarity of this matter is, that, in these 
colleges where socialism is taught, the principles of 
liberty are discredited. The Socialists, in order to 
establish their form of government, seem to find it 
necessary first to undermine and overthrow the Ameri- 
can form of government. The Socialists, like the Im- 
perialists, have no use for the principles of liberty. 
"How long will the American Republic endure?" asked 
Guizot, the historian, of James Russell Lowell. " As 
long as the principles of the forefathers remain domin- 
ant," was the reply. 

BIMETALLISM 

A bill offered as a solution of the money question 
defined in this plank was introduced in the Fifty-third 
Congress on October 24, 1893 (H. R., 4232), prior to 
the repeal of the Sherman Act. A hearing, published 
in their proceedings, was had before the Committee on 
Banking and Currency on June 15, 1894, to which the 
reader is referred. In the Fifty-fourth Congress, 1895 
(H. R. 2787 and 2788), and again in the Fifty-sixth 
Congress, 1900 (H. R. 12049 and 12050) bills covering 
this subject were introduced. In 1896 a (proposed 
money plank appropriate to these bills was offered the 
then leaders of the Republican party in convention as- 
sembled. The managers of that party, however, in their 
platform of 1896, ostensibly promised the people bi- 
metallism by means of an international agreement 
(since 1878 known to financial students as an impractic- 

21 



able project) and, in 1900, gave them gold monometal- 
lism to make good the contract. The Democratic? 
party in its platforms of 1896 and 1900 declared for 
silver monometallism (16 to 1), and in its platform of 
1904 came to a nonplus on the money question, not 
seeming to know what it wanted. 

This unconstitutional project of gold monometallism, 
it now appears, does not work satisfactorily. More 
foundation money is needed in order to hold up the 
credit and growing commerce of the country and to 
continue prosperity. Business depends partly on bank 
credits, these on bank reserves and these on the mone- 
tary system. Bimetallism, it is clear, will sustain a 
larger mass of credit than monometallism. Bimetal- 
lism will provide a wider foundation, strengthen bank 
reserves, and so aid business. The bills above referred 
to are set forth and explained in a pamphlet entitled 
-National Bimetallism." 

The financial press speaks of the flood of gold. The 
present world's production of gold runs at about 
$1,000,000 a day and probably will continue at about 
this rate for some time to come. The population of 
the world is estimated at 1,500,000,000, and this gives 
a per capita production of gold of about twenty-five 
cents per annum, that is to say, you get $2.50 gold in 
ten years if you get your per capita share. In this 
estimate no allowance is made for gold used in the arts, 
which would considerably reduce the estimate. Where 
is the flood? 

The Director of the Mint, in his report for 1905, pub- 
lishes a table (p. 38) showing the monetary systems of 
the principal countries of the world which, in part, is 
as follows: 



22 



Country. 



United States, 

Austria Hungary, .... 

Belgium, 

British Empire : 

Australasia, 

Canada, 

United Kingdom, . . . 

India, 

South Africa, .... 

Straits Settlements, f . 

Bulgaria, 

Cuba, 

Denmark, . , 

Egypt, 

Finland, 

France, 

Germany, 

Greece, 

Haiti, 

Italy, 

Japan, 

Mexico, 

Netherlands, 

Norway, 

Portugal, 

Roumania, 

Russia, 

Servia, 

Siam, 

South American States : 

Argentina, 

Bolivia, 

Brazil, 

Chile, 

Colombia, 

Ecuador, 

Guiana (British), . . . 

Guiana (Dutch), . . . 

Guiana (French), . . . 

Paraguay, 

Peru, 

Uruguay, 

Venezuela, 

Spain, 

Sweden, 

Switzerland, 

Turkey, 

Central American States, . . 
China, 



Money 
Unit. 



Gold 
do. 
do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 
Silver 
Gold 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 

do. 
Silver 
Gold 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
Silver i 
do. 



Name of 
Money Unit. 



Dollar 
Crown 
Franc 

Pound Sterling 

Dollar 

Pound Sterling 

Pound Sterling 

Pound Sterling 

Dollar 

Leva 

Peseta 

Crown 

Piaster 

Markkaa 

Franc 

Mark 

Drachma 

Gourde 

Lira 

Yen 

Peso 

Florin 

Crown 

Milreis 

Lei 
Ruble 
Dinar 
Tical 

Peso 

Boliviano 

Milreis 

Peso 
Dollar 

Sucre 

Pound Sterling 

Florin 

Franc 

Peso 
Sol 

Peso 
Bolivar 
Peseta 
Crown 

Franc 
Piaster 

Peso 

Tael 

Total, , . 



Populs 
tion. 



Thou- 
sands 
82,600 
48,600 
7,000 

5,700 

5,800 

43,500 

295,200 

7,100 

5,800 

3,700 

1,600 

2,600 

9,800 

2,800 

39,000 

56,400 

2,400 

1,300 

33,200 

49,800 

13,600 

5,400 

2,300 

5,400 

6,300 

128,200 

2,600 

5,200 

5,200 

1,800 

16,000 

3,200 

3,900 

1,300 

300 

100 

100 

600 

4,600 

1,000 

2,600 

18,700 

5,200 

3,300 

24,000 

4,100 

330,100 



1,298,500 



f Includes Straits Settlements, the Malay States, Ceylon, and Johore. 
i Except Costa Rica, Panama, and British Honduras — gold unit countries. 

This table shows that the demand for gold is world- 
wide, immense and growing. Since this table was pub- 
lished by the Director of the Mint, items have appeared 



23 



in the public press saying that the Straits, Bolivia, and 
even China are taking steps to adopt the gold unit. 

The character of the monetary system of the Ameri- 
can nation has an important bearing on the question of 
bank reserves. The national banks, according to a 
statement made by the Comptroller's office, in the cen- 
tral reserve cities of New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, 
are required by law to keep on hand the entire amount 
of reserve required, viz: twenty-five per cent, of their 
deposits. Other reserve cities (thirty-five in number) 
must maintain a reserve of twenty-five per cent, of de- 
posits, one half of which may consist of balances due 
from approved reserve agents, and the remainder of 
cash on hand. Country banks are required to maintain 
a reserve of fifteen per cent, of deposits, three- 
fifths of which may consist of balances due from ap- 
proved reserve agents, and the remaining two-fifths 
must be kept in cash on hand. 

Statement of deposits and cash on hand of national 
and other banks from the report of the Comptroller of 
the Currency, Dec. 3, 1906 (p. 54) : 

" In July, 1896, 9,469 banks reported individual de- 
posits of $4,945,124,423, and cash holdings of $531,856,- 
513, the cash being 10.72 per cent, of deposits. The 
individual deposits of all reporting banks in the United 
States on or about June 30 of the present year (1906) 
amounted to $12,196,029,486, and the cash on hand of 
these banks was $1,010,786,354 or about 8.3 per cent, of 
deposits. The following table shows deposits and cash 
holdings and percentage of cash to deposits of the 
several classes of reporting banks: 



Banks. 


Number of 
Banks. 


Individual 
Deposits. 


Cash on 
Hand. 


Per 

Cent. 


Per 

Cent. 


National Banks, . 
State Banks, . . 
Savings Banks, 
Private Banks, 
Loan and Trust 
Companies, . . 


6,053 

8,862 

1,319 

929 

742 


$4,054,677,558 

2,722,922,028 

3,299,544,601 

109,947,509 

2,008,937,790 


$681,163,987 

226,547,594 

26,129,931 

6,761,156 

70,183,686 


8.30 

.79 

6.15 

3.49 


16.80 
1- 4.04 

] 


All Banks, . . 


17,905 


$12,196,029,486 


$1,010,786,354 




8.29 



The percentage of cash to deposits held by banks 

24 



other than national appears to be less than one-fourth 
the percentage held by national banks, such holdings 
being 16.80 per cent, by national banks and an average 
of 4.04 per cent by all other banks." 

From the consideration of the facts set forth in this 
table the conclusion is drawn that the reserves of 
American banks and institutions of deposit are weak. 

Having considered the question of the quantity of 
money held as reserves by the banks of the country 
against deposits, the question of the quality of the 
money of the country now will be considered. Accord- 
ing to the New York Chamber of Commerce report 
(Oct., 1906) the amount of gold coin (or certificates) 
outstanding on July 1, 1906, was $1,475,841,821. The 
amount of inferior money outstanding on the same 
date was as follows: 

United States Legal-tender Notes, $346,681,016 

Treasury Notes of 1890, 7,386,000 

Silver Dollars (or Certificates), 560,864,855 

National Bank Notes, 561,112.360 

Subsidiary Silver, 117,998,588 

Total, |1,594,042,819 

This is more than one-half the circulating medium of 
the country, every dollar of which, without the use of 
the gold reserve, is unavailable in the payment of inter- 
national debts. The present status of the monetary 
system of the United States is, therefore, unsatisfactory. 

Now, what is the present monetary policy? The pres- 
ent monetary policy is largely to increase the volume 
of bank notes which cannot directly be used either in 
the payment of international debts or for bank reserves, 
thus getting in the next few years, from the following 
sources, the amounts given: 

The Fundable Bonds (1907 and 1908) (say), $100,000,000 

Substitution of collateral behind government loans to banks (say), 50,000,000 

The Panama Bonds, issued and to be issued (say), 200,000,000 

Credit Notes, Bill H. R. 23,017, 59th Congress (say), .... 320,000,000 

A Total of (say), $670,000,000 

The present monetary policy, briefly stated, is as fol- 
lows: One-half the circulating medium of the country 
is weak and inferior; let's weaken it some more. Ts 
this policy a prudent one? 

25 



National bank notes outstanding on October i, 1907, 
amounted to $604,161,919, and this vast dilution of the 
circulating medium seems to have operated so as to 
weaken bank reserves. 

In addition to this feebleness of bank reserves, pro- 
vided this policy of constantly diluting the circulating 
medium is continued long enough and strong enough, 
it does not become impossible to throw American prices 
out of gear with the rest of the world, get gold exports, 
and bring on a very uncomfortable financial situation, 
as was pointed out in a letter published in the " Wall 
Street Journal " on December 24, 1906. 

Viscount Goschen, one-time Chancellor of the British 
Exchequer and governor of the Bank of England, in 
his work on the Foreign Exchanges says: 

"Sometimes governments, simply for their own pur- 
poses, issue a quantity of paper money; the natural con- 
sequences will be over-importation; prices will rise in 
consequence of the increase in circulation and accord- 
ingly attract commodities from other markets, while 
the prices of exports having risen also, these latter will 
be less easy of sale abroad. The efflux of specie shows 
that the balance of trade is against that country for the 
time; the equilibrium must be restored when the specie 
is exhausted by slackening importation and consump- 
tion." 

Many States illustrate the principle which the dis- 
tinguishd writer so clearly sets forth. For instance: 
The Argentine nominally is a gold unit country but gold 
is at a premium in that country. The gold unit is not 
effective. Why? Because of the mass of government 
paper in circulation without full metallic guaranty. 

Brazil is nominally a gold unit country but gold is at 
a premium because of forced circulation of government 
notes to a large amount. 

Portugal is nominally a gold unit country but gold is 
at a premium because of the vast issue of inconvertible 
bank notes by the Bank of Portugal. 

Spain, Italy, Siam, Colombia, and Haiti, are prac- 
tically in the same situation as the States here men- 
tioned, and the premium on gold is caused either by an 

26 



over-issue of government paper or of bank notes, or of 
both; in a word, by too much inferior money. 

The United States in the sixties went through a sim- 
ilar experience. The over-issue of United States legal 
tender notes (greenbacks) drove not only all the gold 
but also about all the silver circulation either across 
the ocean or into hoards. John Sherman steered the 
nation out of this difficulty and resumed specie pay- 
ments on January i, 1879. Several of the States above 
mentioned are now taking steps to make the gold unit 
effective. 

From the days of Alexander Hamilton to the present 
time the American people have sought to perfect the 
monetary system of the United States. Since 1873, 
however, an era packed with immense material prog- 
ress, the question: What shall be the monetary system 
of the United States? has been discussed more earn- 
estly than ever before, and progress has been had. This 
progress seems to have taken place through a process 
of elimination, that is to say, plans have been presented, 
and considered, and then discarded or laid aside as unfit. 

At the monetary conference of 1878 the United States 
presented a plan as follows: "That the use of both 
gold and silver as unlimited legal tender money may be 
safely adopted; first, by equalizing them at a relation 
to be fixed by international agreement; and, second, by 
granting to each metal, at the relation fixed, equal terms 
of coinage. " 

Eduardo Pirmez, delegate of Belgium, was the leader 
of those who opposed this plan, showing it to be im- 
practicable. ' At the conclusion of the conference the 
delegates declared that while it was necessary to main- 
tain in the world the monetary functions of both gold 
and silver, " that the differences of opinion which have 
appeared exclude the discussion of the adoption of a 
common ratio between the two metals. " The monetary 
conferences of 1881 and 1892 came to the same conclu- 
sion. The international agreement plan is now elimin- 
ated. 

The Hon. William J. Bryan came along in 1896 and 
presented the plan: " Free and unlimited coinage of 

27 



silver by the United States at the ratio of sixteen to one, 
without waiting for the aid or consent of any other 
nation." For eight years and during two campaigns 
Mr. Bryan presented this plan, and, even against his 
will, succeeded in killing not only 16 to i, which means 
silver monometallism, as a few minutes' figuring will 
show, but also all other fixed ratio plans. Mr. Bryan 
is to be congratulated not only upon the thoroughness 
with which he did this work — but also upon the im- 
mense amount of valuable information on the money 
question which he gave to the people of the United 
States. Silver monometallism is now eliminated. 

The New York Chamber of Commerce in March, 
1906, appointed a special committee on currency, which 
brought in a report at the October meeting that was 
not unanimously adopted. Mr. Claflin in presenting the 
report said, in part: 

" Now our study of the situation has led us to 
believe that the ideal solution of the problem would be 
the creation of a great central bank (we do not say we 
believe this is the practical solution), similar to the 
Banks of Germany and France, and the Austro- 
Hungarian Bank, and the Bank of the Netherlands, 
which show conclusively how flexibility can be obtained 
with absolute safety. Such a bank deals exclusively 
with banks; its stock to be owned in part by banking 
institutions and in part by the Government; but in its 
management representatives of the Government shall 
be supreme. This central bank shall issue currency, re- 
discount for other banks, hold public money, and act 
as agent of the Government in redeeming its paper 
money and making its disbursements." 

" But we do not believe the country would be willing 
to follow the example of the countries of Europe. 
However beneficial we believe that solution would be, 
we have to recognize the fact that it is unlikely that 
such a solution would be adopted by Congress, and we 
therefore make a second recommendation. " 

Professor Joseph French Johnson, who was Secretary 
of the New York Chamber of Commerce Special Com- 
mittee on Currency, in a speech before the Nebraska 

28 



Bankers' Association at Omaha on November 22, 1906, 
spoke in part, as follows: 

" The Chamber of Commerce Committee has been 
criticised for presenting two plans," said Professor 
Johnson. " Why, it is asked, should they recommend 
a central bank of issue and in the same breath prac- 
tically admit that their recommendation is imprac- 
ticable? I want to call your attention to the fact that 
these two recommendations are not really alternatives, 
for in principle they are not inconsistent with each 
other. The second plan merely proposed a modification 
of the existing system, which in the opinion of the com- 
mittee, would afford some relief. There is no reason, 
however, even though these modifications are made, 
why we should not continue an agitation for the ideal — 
namely, for a large bank under government control. 
The second plan may be regarded merely as a step 
toward the ultimate attainment of the first." 

The second plan may be found in the Asset and 
Emergency Notes bill, H. R. 23017, 59th Congress. 

The great central bank plan and the asset note plan, 
it is submitted, are now in process of elimination. 

The fatal and unanswerable objection to the bank 
note plans now being considered in Congress and by 
the public press is this — that the currency produced 
under any one of them is neither available in the pay- 
ment of international debts nor for bank reserves. 
Congress has been watering the currency for years 
and cannot continue this policy indefinitely without 
bringing the greatest disasters upon the business world. 
This inferior money (see page 25) is all in circulation in 
this country, being practically useless elsewhere, and 
bank-note circulation can wait until the national money, 
which is the foundation upon which all business rests 
and which now is in a very unsatisfactory condition, has 
been strengthened, reorganized, and perfected. 

The American party opposes further dilution of the 
circulating medium and proposes independent national 
bimetallism and reorganization of the silver dollars, 
subsidiary coins, and legal tender notes. 

" The circulating medium of a commercial com- 

29 



munity," said Daniel Webster, " must be that 
which is also the circulating medium of other 
commercial communities, or, it must be capable 
of being converted into that medium without 
loss. It must be able not only to pass in payments and 
receipts among the people of one country and nation 
but it also must be able to adjust and discharge the 
balance of exchanges between different countries and 
nations." The gold and silver money arising under the 
bills, before mentioned in the proposed platform, per- 
fectly fit Webster's requirement, and, when this mone- 
tary system, stable as Gibraltar, is put into operation 
it means that we can strengthen bank reserves, vastly 
increase our foreign trade, continue prosperity in this 
country for an indefinite length of time and eventually 
make the United States the financial and commercial 
center of the world. 

No nation on the face of the globe ever yet has had 
a perfect bimetallic monetary system. This we propose 
to establish. Said Senator Wm. M. Evarts of New 
York at the International Monetary Conference of 
1881 : 

"We occupy — quite as much in our geographical 
position in this aspect towards the different forms of 
wealth, production, and industry — an entirely catholic 
and free position, having no interest but the great inter- 
est that all nations, as far as money is concerned, 
should not be embarrassed in trading with us, and that 
we, as far as money is concerned, should not be ob- 
structed in selling our raw products to the skilled 
nations of Europe or the products of our industry to 
the consumers in less developed nations. Besides this 
equilibrium of selfishness, which makes the general 
good our good, we are free from any bias in the matter 
of the production of the precious metals, trivial as that 
is in comparison with the immense and fervid march of 
commerce. We produce the two metals equally. Out 
of the same prolific silver mines, even, the same ore 
gives us 55 per cent, of silver and 45 per cent, of gold. 
How can you imagine a nation, in regard to the produc- 
tion of the precious metals, more indifferent as to 

30 



which is to be made the master of the world? It is 
bad tyranny that we resist. 

It is the possession of freedom and of power in the 
commerce of the world by the service of both these 
metals, in place of the mastery of either, that we ad- 
vocate. What, then, are the functions and service of 
money, not in the abstract, but in reference to the 
actual development of the industries and commerce of 
the world? What in the present, and what in the near 
future, are the conditions under which this office and 
service of money are to be performed? What are the 
impediments that exist, either in the natural properties 
of the metals, or the habits, the associations, the re- 
pugnances, the preferences of mankind? What in its 
history — what in its institutions — are the embarass- 
ments in regard to what, as an abstract idea, everyone 
must applaud and everyone must maintain to be a de- 
sideratum — a fixity of the unit of money all over the 
world? What, in a word, has already been done in the 
progress of affairs towards this desideratum? What 
remains to be done? What is there, within the re- 
sources of courage and wisdom, in the voluntary action 
of the nations? What is competent, within the courage 
and wisdom of this conference, for it to propose that 
shall accomplish this great result of placing the 
money of the world abreast with its burdens and 
responsibilities and untrammeled in the discharge of 
them ? . . . 

All this vast expanse of credit in the developed com- 
merce of the world rests finally upon the intrinsic money 
of the world, and if you would have fixity, unity, and 
permanence in the credit operations of the world, 
then there must be fixity, unity, and permanence in all 
the intrinsic money of the world upon which that credit 
rests. This credit is, almost without a figure, a vast 
globe, and this service of the precious metals to sustain 
it is that of an Atlas, upon whom the whole fabric rests. 
The strength of both arms, nerved by a united impulse 
of heart and will, is indispensable; neither can be 
spared." 

Senator Howe of Michigan, whose remarks at the 

31 



Monetary Conference of 1881 are as applicable to-day as 
then, said in part: 

" The demand for circulation grows with the world's 
increasing trade. We are in no danger of inundation 
from the precious metals. Enormous lines of railways 
being unrolled upon both hemispheres, great fleets of 
steam-driven ships traversing all our seas, reveal a 
commerce gigantic to be sure, but it is young. It is 
substantially the growth of but little more than two 
(now four) decades. If statesmen of the present time 
do not strangle the future, this child of twenty (now 
forty) years will prove the mother of a commerce 
which defies calculation and appals prophecy. The re- 
tirement of silver means to double the weight of ex- 
isting obligations and to compress the world's activities 
into half their existing scope. It means to consign the 
nineteenth century to a pauper's grave and to lay the 
heavy hand of paralysis on the cradle of the twentieth." 

William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, in 
his report upon the currency Feb. 12, 1820, states the 
following principles concerning the national money, 
with which the proposed bimetallic monetary system 
before referred to accords: 

" First. That the power of the Government over the 
currency be absolutely sovereign. 

" Second. That its stability be above suspicion. 

" Third. That its justice, morality, and intelligence 
be unquestioned. 

" Fourth. That the issue of the currency be made not 
only to depend upon the demand for it, but that an 
equivalent be actually received. 

" Fifth. That an equivalent can only be found in the 
delivery of an equal amount of gold or silver, or of 
public stock. 

" When the currency is metallic, no addition can be 
made to it without giving an equivalent. It is indis- 
pensable that this condition should be annexed to the 
acquisition of the paper currency, preliminary to its 
entering into circulation. By the exchange of specie 
for currency the active capital of the country will be 
increased to the amount of the currency, and the capac- 

32 



ity of the nation to redeem it, whenever it shall by any 
circumstances whatever become expedient, will be un- 
questionable." 

Mr. Pirmez, delegate of Belgium, at the monetary 
conference of 1881, said in part: " The monetary ques- 
tion is a question which raises numerous problems. 
They bear upon a situation which not only is not perfect, 
but which will not be so unless at a very distant 
day. Perfection evidently would be the monetary unity 
of the whole world. How far are we from that — how 
many stages to be made before reaching it? But just 
because we are far from the goal and because it is 
difficult to attain it, we ought to try to approach it and 
every difficulty overcome is a progress. It is, therefore, 
well not to abandon the examination of a matter in 
which there is so much to be done." 

Since, as practical solutions of the money question, 
international agreement, 16 to 1, or any other fixed-ratio 
plan, and the several bank-note projects have been or 
shortly will be eliminated by the natural course of 
events, which always and everywhere controls all efforts 
opposing it, what is left to meet the situation? Inde- 
pendent national bimetallism is left to meet the situation 
and this, when adopted, slowly yet certainly, will lead 
to the monetary unity of the whole world, a desider- 
atum that the great statesmen of the last generation 
saw and applauded. Independent national bimetallism 
can be had only by passing a bill or bills in Congress, 
therefore, the solution of the question turns upon the 
words and their arrangement in the bill or bills dealing 
with this subject. These bills which are offered as a 
solution of the money question again can be introduced 
in Congress at the request of the author and owner. 

Among those who have encouraged the author in this 
enterprise, either by word or by letter, are the following, 
some of whom have passed away: John Sherman, 
Thomas B. Reed, John P. Jones, Henry M. Teller, W. 
E. Chandler, Marriot Brosius, John J. Lentz, ex-Presi- 
dent Harrison of Washington, George S. Coe, Wash- 
ington E. Connor, Andrew Carnegie, John W. Mackey, 
Robert G. Ingersoll, C, Schumacher, Jesse Seligman, 

33 



Frederic Taylor, James F. Mathews, J. F. De Navarro, 
Samuel R. Taylor of New York, Charles A. Otis, Dan 
P. Eels of Cleveland, O.; Louis Brush, E. O. McNair, 
Robert Fryer, Dan H. Wilcox, George V. Forman, 
William B. Cutter, C. W. Goodyear, Richard Lyman of 
Buffalo, George Monteflore Levi of Brussels, President 
of the Brussels Monetary Conference; Alfred 
De Rothschild of London, and many newspapers. 

NEWFOUNDLAND 

This island controls the mouths of the mighty St. 
Lawrence, the natural gateway of Canada. A liberal 
reciprocity treaty with this ancient and independent 
colony certainly has a meaning that a live Senate will 
grasp. 

NAVY 

The Phoenicians were the first to invent a boat that 
would sail to windward, and therefore controlled the 
waters of the then known world. This invention, which 
has been slowly developed, has found its most perfect 
expression in the ships of Drake which sailed circles 
about the clumsy ships of the Spanish Armada, in the 
American Privateers of 1776 and 1812, in the California 
Clipper ships of 1850, and in the cup defenders of Herre- 
shoff. The Monitor displaced wooden vessels for fight- 
ing ships. 

All modern navies are a development of Ericsson's 
Monitor. England's present supremacy on the sea, I 
think, is largely due to the ideas of this man and to 
William Pettit Smith, who, according to Samuel Smiles, 
was one of the inventors of the screw propellor. A new 
invention has recently arisen which threatens to dis- 
place the armored ships. 

The submarine torpedo boats which Holland and 
Lake have produced are practical inventions but they 
are as yet by no means developed. The perfected sub- 
marine or submersile, it is suggested, should be an 
ocean-going boat fashioned after the Tuna, which, ac- 
cording to Frank Bullen, F. R. G. S., gets up a speed 
of thirty miles per hour in pursuit of the flying fish, thus 

34 



the model is something the water likes. This boat 
should be fitted with double or triple screws turned 
by any of the self-contained engines, which should be so 
arranged, if possible, so as to condense their exhaust, 
thus giving the greatest possible speed, and should have 
fins actuated from the interior so that, when almost 
submerged, it could be made to dive or rise at the will 
of the operator. 

Two hundred of these boats could probably be built 
for less than the cost of four first-class battleships and 
this fleet would give the United States control of the 
seas. In view of the improvements made and to be 
made in submarines and submersiles, Senator Hale has 
recently declared in the Senate that he considered the 
vast sums recently put into armored ships would turn 
out to be a bad investment. 

MONROE DOCTRINE 

The Monroe Doctrine never has been formulated by 
Congress and, therefore, the President, for the time 
being, and his advisers are free to put such interpreta- 
tion upon it as they fancy. Senator Lodge, during the 
Cleveland administration, and the late Senator Davis 
on another occasion, tried to formulate it but failed, and 
it is by no means certain that it can be formulated and 
enacted by Congress at the present time. The effect 
of this action would be to give the American Republic 
commercial control of the Western Hemisphere. In 
a letter sent President Roosevelt March 12, 1904, the 
plan set forth in plank " Application of Monroe Doc- 
trine " was advocated as regards San Domingo. This 
was carried out after a fashion. 

PEACE COURT 

The rescript of the Russian Czar, Nicholas II., put 
forth August 24, 1898, which led to the Hague Peace 
Conference of May 18, 1899, closes with the following 
words: " This conference should be, by the help of 
God, a happy presage for the century which is about to 
open. It would converge in one powerful focus the 
efforts of all great States which are sincerely seeking 

35 



to make the great idea of universal peace triumph over 
the elements of trouble and discord. It would at the 
same time confirm their agreement by the solemn estab- 
lishment of the principles of justice and right, upon 
which repose the security of States and the welfare 
of peoples." 

What are the principles of justice and right upon 
which repose the security of States and the welfare of 
peoples ? 

The Hague Convention has not been an unqualified 
success. It does not stop war, and, unless it is amended 
or recast, it is safe to say never will stop war for the 
reason that no nation, knowingly, will vote away or 
even jeopardize its independence. What is wanted is a 
solution of the Peace Question, not a compromise or 
a makeshift. Prudent men all over the world look to the 
issues of events and these men, who constitute the 
pillars of the State in every nation, now oppose the 
arbitration of important questions under the present 
Hague Convention for the reason that they are not 
certain what principles of law, if any, will guide 
the judges who make the decisions. Under this treaty 
the several signatory Powers in effect are invited, 
without recourse, to place interests of vast moment at 
the disposal of judges whose legal principles are not 
known and whom no election can reach. The prudent 
men of any nation cannot accept such an invitation. It 
is evident that unless the judges of a Peace Court are 
agreed upon their understanding of the fundamental 
principles of world's law science applicable to all 
men, there can be no agreement in their decisions. 
Manifestly, then, the first business of a Peace Con- 
ference is to make search for these principles, and, as 
the rescript of the Russian Czar expresses it, " confirm 
their agreement by the solemn establishment of the 
principles of justice and right, upon which repose the 
security of States and the welfare of peoples." 

The Czar here raises a great light that seems to 
illuminate the whole subject of the world's peace, which, 
if kept in view, I think, will lead to a solution of this 
question. When the principles of reason, justice, and 

36 



right, upon which repose the security of States and the 
welfare of peoples are found, stated, and adopted, then 
the judges of the Peace Court upon whom will rest their 
practical application, can be bound by oath to apply 
them to the judgment of questions coming before the 
Court, and, by giving each disputing State the right to 
appeal the decision to their own center of justice, as 
a measure of caution and to comply with constitutional 
requirements as far as the United States is concerned, 
the independence of each nation would be assured. 
Thus, in the last analysis, if war comes it will be a just 
war waged to defend and support the principles of rea- 
son, justice, and right, upon which repose the security 
of nation^ and the welfare of peoples. This suggestion 
was incorporated in a letter published in the New York 
" Evening Post," Sept. 28, 1904. 

Benjamin Harrison said: 

"Arbitration has halted because of the difficulty there 
has been in finding a purely judicial tribunal, one that 
would consider international questions with the same 
indifference to the parties and the same impartiality 
of judgment which characterize our courts in the 
trial of questions between individuals. When such a 
tribunal can be attained and the faith of the nations 
in the fact of its attainment confirmed, disarmament 
will be nearer and the grievous burdens which the main- 
tenance of armies imposes upon industry will be lifted. 
America will hail the glad day." 

(Views of an ex-President, p. 495). 

The Hague Peace Conference of 1899 did not formu- 
late, and, as far as the record shows, did not consider 
or discuss the principles of justice and right referred 
to in the rescript of the Czar, and the Peace Conference 
of 1907 in all probability will not formulate, consider, 
or discuss them for the reason, that, if this is attempted, 
the American representatives at the Conference, assum- 
ing that they are upright and honorable men, would 
be constrained to offer in the form of a resolution for 
the consideration and action of the conference the 
American Principles of Liberty as the principles of 
reason, justice, and right, upon which repose the se- 

37 



curity of States and the welfare of peoples, and this 
resolution, whether voted up or voted down, would be 
of perilous consequences to the thrones of Europe. 
The Imperialist nations, I think, can not afford to 
discuss these principles. 

Laying aside, then, this plan as one, that at the 
present time does not seem to be one that will imme- 
diately produce practical results, the question at once 
arises: What now can be done, that, when put in oper- 
ation, largely will make for the peace of the world? 
The answer suggests itself. Congress has power (Con- 
stitution, Sec. VIII, Clause 9) to constitute tribunals 
inferior to the Supreme Court. By Congressional 
enactment a Peace Court can be constituted. The bill 
or treaty creating the Court would provide: that a 
Peace Court be constituted; that the several nations of 
the world are invited to name judges thereto; that the 
accepting nations bind themselves to submit all differ- 
ences not capable of solution through the ordinary 
diplomatic channels to said Peace Court; that the 
judges thereof shall be under oath to uphold, defend, 
and apply the principles of liberty to the solution of 
all questions coming before the court; that the accept- 
ing nations have the right of appeal from the decision 
of the court to their respective centers of justice, — 
with such other provisions regarding the method of 
selecting judges from the panel, rules of the court, etc., 
etc., as may be necessary to establish and make the 
Peace Court perpetual. This is a reasonable and prac- 
tical plan to which no American and no friend of liberty 
can object, and it can be put into operation quickly. 
There are no difficulties here. 

Suppose Congress passes a Peace Court bill or treaty 
built on this plan. What nations would accept the 
invitation to name judges to the Peace Court? Plainly, 
all the liberty nations of the world, perhaps twenty-five 
in number. Thus a good start would be made. It 
can hardly be expected that a favorable reply would be 
received from nations committed to and steeped in 
Imperialism. These nations must be left to that slow 
but certain process of human evolution from which they 

38 



cannot escape and which, eventually, one by one, will 
bring them into the family of liberty nations. Von 
Suttner says: "I have learned to reason that the con- 
ditions of social life can only be understood, and their 
future course predicted, when we grasp the truth that 
they stand subject to the inexorable law of human de- 
velopment. Of this, politicians and dignitaries of State 
have not the remotest conception, and the much-vaunted 
military class of course none at all. A few years ago 
I myself had not reached this appreciation of truth. " 

Immanuel Kant, Germany's greatest philosopher, long 
ago declared that the first definite article in the con- 
ditions of perpetual peace is that, " the civil constitu- 
tion of every State shall be republican." 

In his essay entitled " Perpetual Peace," he said in 
part: 

" Now, in point of fact, the Republican Constitution, 
in addition to the purity of its origin as arising from the 
original source of the conception of Right, includes also 
the prospect of realising the desired object: Perpetual 
Peace among the nations. . . . For if happy cir- 
cumstances bring it about that a powerful and enlight- 
ened people form themselves into a Republic — which 
by its very nature must be disposed in favour of Per- 
petual Peace — this will furnish a center of federative 
union for other States to attach themselves to, and 
thus to secure the conditions of liberty among all States, 
according to the idea of the Right of Nations; and such 
a Union would extend wider and wider, in the course of 
time, by the addition of further connections of this 
kind." ... 

"But the social relations between the various peoples 
of the world, in narrower or wider circles, have now ad- 
vanced everywhere so far that a violation of Right in 
one place of the earth is felt all over it. Hence the idea 
of a cosmo-political Right of the whole human Race is 
no phantastic or overstrained mode of representing 
Right, but is a necessary completion of the unwritten 
Code which carries national and international Right to 
a consummation in the Public Right of mankind. Thus 
the whole system leads to the conclusion of a Perpetual 

39 



Peace among the nations, and it is only under the con- 
ditions now laid down that men may flatter themselves 
with the belief, that they are making a continual ap- 
proach to its realisation." 

CONCLUSION 

The warfare, secret and open, now being waged 
against the principles of liberty and their application 
to American questions by certain strange persons who 
seem to seek to become instrumental in establishing a 
vast destruction, directs attention to the teachings of 
past generations. Daniel Webster tells us that the 
structure of a government republican in form is the 
opposite to that of a government monarchial in form, as 
follows: " It is true that in England the King is regarded 
as the original fountain of all honor and all office, and 
that anciently, indeed, he possessed all political power 
of every kind. . . . All liberty, as we know it, all 
popular privileges, as indeed the world itself imports, were 
formerly considered as favors and concessions from 
the monarch. But whenever and wherever civil freedom 
could get a foothold, and could maintain itself, these 
favors were turned into rights . . . and by the revo- 
lution of 1688 they were acknowledged as the rights 
of Englishmen by the Prince who then ascended the 
throne and as the condition on which he was allowed 
to sit upon it. 

But with us there never was a time when we ac- 
knowledged original, unrestrained, sovereign power 
over us. Our constitutions are not made to limit and 
restrain pre-existing authority. They are the instru- 
ments by which the people confer power on their own 
servants. If I may use a legal phrase, the people are 
grantors, not grantees. They give to the government, 
and to each branch of it, all the power it possesses, or 
can possess; and what is not given they retain. In 
England, before her revolution, and in the rest of Eu- 
rope since, if we would know the extent of liberty or 
popular right, we must go to grants, to charters, to 
allowances, and indulgencies. But with us, we go to 
grants and to constitutions to learn the extent of powers 

40 



of government. No political power is more original 
than the Constitution; none is possessed which is not 
there granted; and the grant, and the limitations in 
the grant, are in the same instrument. The powers, 
therefore, belonging to any branch of our government, 
are to be construed and settled, not by remote analogies 
drawn from other governments, but from the words of 
the grant itself, in their plain sense and necessary im- 
port, and according to an interpretation consistent with 
our history and the spirit of our own institutions." 

(Presidential Protest). 

The starting point of the American system of govern- 
ment is the individual sovereign man, dowered with his 
natural rights. Individuals meet, either in person, or by 
their duly elected representatives, and, by contract 
form a government, State or national. The constitu- 
tion or frame of government, which is the shape the 
contract takes, when ratified by the individuals of the 
society, becomes the social compact to uphold which all 
are sacredly bound. The whole idea of the American 
governments, State and national, is to provide the machin- 
ery by means of which the individuals who ordain and 
establish these governments may secure and protect 
their natural rights. The logical basis of republican gov- 
ernment in America is this: that all men are free, equal, 
and independent as far as regards their rights, therefore, 
they may set up government to protect these rights. The 
structure of the American governments, State and national, 
is identical. All rest upon the principles of liberty. 

Justice Story said: "This is a constitution of govern- 
ment ordained and established by the people of the 
United States for themselves and their posterity. They 
have declared it the supreme law of the land. They 
have made it a limited government. They have de- 
fined its authority. They have restrained it to the ex- 
ercise of certain powers and reserved all others to the 
States or the people. It is a popular government. 
Those who administer it are responsible to the people. 
It is as popular, and just as much emanating from the 
people, as the State governments. It is created for 
one purpose; the State governments for another. It 

41 



may be altered, and amended, and abolished at the 
will of the people. In short, it was made by the people, 
made for the people, and it is responsible to the 
people." (Commentaries, p. 382). 

Daniel Webster, reply to Calhoun, said in part: 
" The Constitution, sir, regards itself as perpetual and 
immortal. It seeks to establish a union among the 
people of the States, which shall last through all time. 
Or, if the common fate of things human must be ex- 
pected at some period to happen to it, yet that catas- 
trophe is not anticipated, the instrument contains 
ample provisions for its amendment, at all times; none 
for its abandonment, at any time. It declares that new 
States may come into the Union, but it does not declare 
that old States may go out. The Union is not a tempo- 
rary partnership of States. It is the association of the 
people, under a constitution of government, uniting 
their power, joining together their highest interests, 
cementing their present enjoyments, and blending, in 
one indivisible mass, all their hopes for the future. 
Whatsoever is steadfast in just political principles; 
whatsover is permanent in the structure of human 
society; whatsoever there is which can derive an endur- 
ing character from being founded on deep-laid prin- 
ciples of constitutional liberty and on the broad founda- 
tions of the public will, all these unite to entitle this 
instrument to be regarded as a permanent constitution 
of government." 

John Locke, on usurpers, said: "He who by force 
or fraud goes about to invade the rights of the people 
and lays a plan for undermining constitutional govern- 
ment is guilty of the greatest crime of which a man 
is capable, having to answer for all those mischiefs of 
blood, rapine, and desolation which the disintegration 
of government brings upon a people. He who does this 
is justly to be esteemed the common enemy and pest of 
mankind and is to be treated accordingly. Whosoever 
uses force without right puts himself into a state of war 
against those whom he uses it, and in that state all 
former ties are cancelled and everyone has a right to 
defend himself against the aggressor." 

42 



Webster, on dangers to the Constitution, said in part: 
" But certainly, there are dangers to the Constitution, 
and we ought not to shut our eyes to them. We know 
the importance of a firm and intelligent judiciary; but 
how shall we secure the continuance of a firm and in- 
telligent judiciary? Gentlemen, the judiciary is in the 
appointment of the executive power. It cannot con- 
tinue or renew itself. Its vacancies are to be filled in 
the ordinary mode of executive appointment. If the 
time shall ever come (which Heaven avert) when men 
shall be placed in the supreme tribunal of the country, 
who entertain opinions hostile to the just powers of 
the Constitution, we shall then be visited by an evil de- 
fying all remedy. Our case will be past surgery. From 
that moment the Constitution is at an end. If they 
who are appointed to defend the castle shall betray it, 
woe betide those within. If I live to see that day 
come, I shall be prepared to give it back to all its former 
afflictions as in the days of the Confederation. I know 
no security against the possibility of this evil but an 
awakened public vigilance. I know no safety but in that 
state of public opinion which shall lead it to rebuke 
and put down every attempt either to gratify party by 
judicial appointment or to violate the Constitution by 
creating a court which shall construe away its provis- 
ions. If members of Congress betray their trust, the 
people will find it out before they are ruined. If the 
President should at any time violate his duty, his term 
of office is short, and popular elections may supply a 
seasonable remedy. But the judges of the Supreme 
Court possess, for very good reasons, an independent 
tenure of office. No election reaches them. If, with 
this tenure, they betray their trust, Heaven save us! 
Let us hope for better results. The past, certainly, may 
encourage us. Let us hope we shall never see the time 
when there shall exist such an awkward posture of 
affairs, as that the government shall be found in op- 
position to the Constitution, and when the guardians of 
the Union shall become its betrayers." 

(Public dinner at New York). 

The object of the proposed platform hereinbefore set 

43 



forth is to place x\mericanism before the voters in such 
a shape that they can vote it up or vote it down. If 
the voters vote Americanism up, it is well; if they vote 
Americanism down, it is also well, but not so well. 
Neither Congress nor the Legislature of any State can 
act except by means of a bill or resolution, and the 
American Party puts its policies and the bills it pro- 
poses to enact into its platform. The initiative and 
referendum is found here, but stripped of the compli- 
cated and confusing machinery which the advocates of 
the initiative and referendum plan propose. 

It is respectfully submitted that, at the present time, 
Americans should organize America on the principles 
of Americanism. To do this thing is here attempted. 
The alternative proposition to the one here presented 
is Imperialism, Socialism, or at least something which 
is not Americanism. The alternative seems to be dis- 
solution, disintegration, and decay. Now what do the 
voters want in regard to this matter? 

One way of launching this project, and there are other 
ways, is, by petition, to nominate candidates for Con- 
gress on this platform or one built on this general 
plan and thus establish a nucleus which can be devel- 
oped into a national party. 

There can be no progress without order and it is 
submitted that the proposed platform for the American 
Party hereinbefore set forth is an orderly one, clearly 
expressed and intended, when adopted and worked out, 
to produce certain definite results. The policy therein 
set forth is purely an American policy and it is all a 
practical one. The plan contemplates the enactment 
and application by the Congress and by the Legislatures 
of the several States of the Principles of Liberty upon 
which rest American law, the Constitution of the United 
States and the constitutions of the several States. Hold- 
ing these principles in view, the plan contemplates the 
establishment of a Republic in the Philippine Islands, 
not immediately, but at the earliest practicable moment; 
Alaska and Porto Rico are to be given territorial forms 
of government at once and territories now asking for ad- 
mission as States of the Union are advised to follow an 

44 



American method of procedure. The plan proposes 
to regulate the franchise, making it an honor for a 
citizen to be a voter, and to restrict immigration to those 
only who can be developed into Americans. The plan 
presents, it is claimed, the only practical method by 
means of which it is possible to banish Imperialism from 
and stop the growth of Socialism in this country. The 
plan contemplates the solution of the money question 
in accordance with the Constitutional requirements, 
providing a perfect monetary system, the commercial 
value of which can hardly be over-estimated. The ques- 
tions of the tariff and the trusts are to be treated in 
a reasonable and scientific manner. The Panama mat- 
ter and the Newfoundland matter are to be adjusted in 
the interests of progress. The army and navy are to 
be developed and rendered more efficient. The plan 
contemplates the statement and application of the Mon- 
roe Doctrine, thus giving the United States the oppor- 
tunity of increased commercial expansion. Lastly, the 
plan contemplates the establishment of a World's Peace 
Court, the judges of which, in all cases coming before 
the court, shall be bound to apply the American prin- 
ciples of liberty, upon which, as we claim, properly 
repose the security of nations and the welfare of 
peoples. 

Courteous Reader: 

In asking you to support this Proposed Platform for 
the American Party and to vote for the candidates who 
may stand upon it, and, in closing, I can find no words 
more appropriate than those once used by a great 
statesman of the past when considering the duties and 
responsibilities of American citizenship. In his oration 
on Washington, Daniel Webster, in language that ap- 
plies to-day, said in part: "The spirit of human liberty 
and of free government, nurtured and grown into 
strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course 
into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from 
Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. 
It must change, it is fast changing the face of the earth. 
Our great, our high duty, is to show in our own example 

45 



that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of 
power; that its benignity is as great as its strength; 
that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social rela- 
tions, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force 
with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The 
world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, 
but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and 
awful anxiety is to learn whether free States may be 
stable, as well as free; whether popular power may be 
trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regu- 
lar, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the 
contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illus- 
trated, and brought into practice in the country of 
Washington. For the earth which we inhabit, and the 
whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of 
mankind we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal 
or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who 
shall venture the repetition? If our example shall 
prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, 
not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where 
else shall the world look for free models? If this great 
Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what 
other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be 
lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, 
even, on the darkness of the world? . . . 

" Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects 
overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our com- 
merce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; 
if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may re- 
plenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, 
under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, 
and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even 
if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its 
lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be 
all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might 
be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of 
demolished government? Who shall rear again the 
well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? 
Who shall frame together the skillful architecture which 
unites national supremacy with State rights, individual 
security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns 

46 



fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum 
and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, 
a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will 
flow over them than were ever shed over the monu- 
ments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the 
remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or 
Rome ever saw; the edifice of Constitutional American 
Liberty." 

THE END 



47 



PRESS NOTICES 

The Science of Business. 1835. G. P. Putman's Sons. 

" Not a dry book, but on the contrary an original and decidedly enterta'ning 
volume." Commercial and Financial Chronicle, New York, Oct. 3, 1885. 

" A writer who limits the days of present distress and forecasts, on scientific 
principles, the phenomena of commerce during the next six years." Saturday 
Review, London, Nov. 21, 1885. 

" The science of statistics has no more fanciful chapter than the one which can 
be read between the lines of Mr. Smith's book. It makes mathematics a rom- 
ance." Republican, St. Louis, Nov. 5, 1885. 

" An interesting book." New York Tribune, Oct. 10, 1885. 

Smith's Business Chart. 1888. 

" By a system of colored bars the fluctuations in several branches of business 
and finances, extending over a period of more than thirty years, can be readily 
noted. It is convenient for instant reference." American Banker, Sept. 15, 
1888. 

" For statistical reference the most compendious thing possible, as it tells its 
story of the years at a glance." Daily Investigator, Sept. 29, 1888. 

The Art of Speculation. 1888. American News Co. 
"An interesting little book on stock speculation." Commercial and Financial 
Chronicle, June 29, 1889. 

A New Business in Wall Street, 1890. American News Co. 

" The author of this work has developed a plan by which he believes some 
certainty can be attained in dealing in securities and has certainly produced a 
most interesting and attractive little work." Scientific American, March 7, 1891. 

The Silver Question Settled. 1893. The Baker & Taylor Co., N. Y. 

" Roderick H. Smith, author of several works on financial and business sub- 
jects, has written a pamphlet setting forth a plan for settling the silver question, 
which seems to the Express the best of any of the hundreds offered. It directs 
the Government to take all the silver offered, only stipulating that the natural and 
not an artificial price shall be paid. Those who demand free silver for the sake 
of having the amount of currency increased should be satisfied with this bill. At 
the same time the gold men should be satisfied, for the bill guarantees that every 
note issued by the Government is to be payable in silver at its gold value. A 
dollar's worth of silver is just as good as a dollar's worth of gold, provided it is 
actually a dollar's worth and not seventy cents' worth, falsely called a dollar. It 
seems to us that, instead of fighting for more double-standard compromises, the 
friends of honest money should unite to secure the adoption of some sensible act 
like this. If it cannot be obtained* from the Congress that has been elected, let 
an agitation be begun which shall cause the election two years hence of a Con- 
gress that will enact a sound-money law." — Buffalo Express, March 2, 1893. 

" The plan outlined below seems to be the best which has come before the 
public so far. In the first place, it supplies the prime requisite, the sine qua 
non, of a sound currency. It lets the Government out of the banking business. 
It makes the Government, as it should be, and as our Constitution intended, 
merely an agent for such holders of gold or silver bullion as wish to have the 
same converted into money. . . . These few remarks give but a brief out- 
line of the provisions of this bill, which seems, more than any other so far 
brought forward, to satisfy the demands ot our Constitution and of sound financial 
laws. The dollars created under it would satisfy the requirement of Daniel 
Webster in the quotation cited above. They would be capable of conversion 
into the circulating mediums of other communities without loss. Thus a strong 
and simple currency system would be established. Up to the present time no 
idea has been brought forward which seems so fully to supply the demand of our 
people to-day, which is for a currency system that will provide that every dollar 
shall be the equal of every other dollar at home and abroad." — New York 
Evening Sun, March 11, 1893. 

48 



TESTIMONIALS 

(Copy) 

GEO. S. COE, PRES. THE AMERICAN EXCHANGE NATIONAL BANK, 

DUMONT CLARK, V. PRES. 128 BROADWAY, New YORK ClTY. 

EDWARD BURNS, CASHIER. 

New York, April 4, 1893. 
Roderick H. Smith, Esq. 

Dear Sir : I have read with great pleasure your pamphlet entitled " The 
Silver Question Settled," and consider that as a practical solution of that subject 
upon a sound commercial basis ; no idea has been presented more clearly than 
the proposed bill therein contained. Very truly yours, 

(.Signed) GEO. S. COE. 
(Copy) 

DAN P. EELLS, PRES. 

JOSEPH COLWELL, V. PRES. THE COMMERCIAL NATIONAL BANK, 

w. p. johnson, cashier. Cleveland, Ohio, May 9, 1893. 

Roderick H. Smith, Esq., New York, N. Y. 

Dear Sir : I have read with much interest your paper entitled " The Silver 
Question Settled." 

Assuming that we must take independent action, it seems to me that some 
such law as you suggest might be the best solution of the perplexing question 
which is available. I should like to see it tried. Truly yours, 

(Signed) DAN P. EELLS. 
(Copy) 

71 Broadway, New York City, 
July 14, 1893. 
Roderick H. Smith, Esq., New York City, N. K 

Dear Sir: I consider your pamphlet on the " Silver Question" the ablest 
document which has yet been produced in favor of the use of silver, and believe 
that with the unconditional repeal of the Sherman Act we would have an 
immediate restoration of confidence ; people would no longer act through fear, 
and they would then accept such a measure as you propose and have confidence 
in its results. Yours truly, (Signed) WASHINGTON E. CONNOR. 

Roderick H. Smith, Esq., Kingussie, N. B. 

The New York Stock Trust, Cluny Castle, July 3, 1891. 

6 Wall Street, 
N. Y. City, N. Y. 
My Dear Sir : Mr. Carnegie has received your interesting letter of June 2d 
together with copy of your article, and asks me to thank you for the same. He 
has no doubt that the people will decide in favor of HONEST MONEY, when- 
ever they understand the question, and he is glad to find your view upon the 
right side. Respectfully, P. W. FINNEGAN, Secretary. 

(Copy) J. & W. Seligman & Co., Bankers, 

Mills Building. 
New York, May 23, 1893. 
Mr. Roderick H. Smith. 

Dear Sir : In answer to your letter of May 16th, I would say that I do not 
think the present moment one at which anything definite can be decided on the 
Silver Question. I have read your pamphlet with interest, however, and shall 
keep the same before me. Yours truly, (Signed) J LSSE SELIGMAN. 

(Copy) C. Schumacher & Co., 

P-O. Box 1786. 42 Exchange Place. 
New York, March 18, 1895. 
Roderick H. Smith Esq. 

Dear Sir : I have read with much interest your pamphlet " The Silver 
Question Settled." Your scheme is undoubtedly the result of a careful study, 
and also of a thorough knowledge of the subject. Yours truly, 

C. SCHUMACHER. 

Hearing before the Committee on Banking and Currency, 53d Con- 
gress, July 15, 1894, on bill H. R. 4,232; introduced by Mr. Brosius, by request, 
on October 24, 1893. See records of committee, pages 475 to 532. 

National Bimetallism, 1896. 

Proposed Platform for the American Party, 1896 ; 1901 ; 1903 ; 1904, 
and 1907. 

49 



